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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

What I wanted to go over first is a work called About Buddhism, written by Atisha, a Tibetan Buddhist master from the 11th-century. He’s talking about the highest levels of practice that serve as the cornerstone of Chan Buddhism. He begins:

“The greatest achievement is selflessness.”

It’s rather difficult, because here we’re talking in concepts and selflessness really isn’t a concept. We’re trying to work away from being tied to our ego, our self-love and our self-conceit, in order to be selfless in what we do. When we are too caught up in our own affairs, we make a mess of the things around us and we don’t see the world in the proper way. If we let go of that kind of thinking, the world becomes a different place. It becomes a place where one is clearly aware of the causes and conditions that bring forth whatever appearances are arising around us. Atisha talks about how, in this selflessness, we just simply are not attaching to the idea of an “I.”

Probably the hardest thing for us to do is to disassociate our mind from the notion of self. We really believe that there is a self that needs to be placated, satisfied, protected, and championed. As a result of hanging on to that, we cause a lot of disturbance around us because we always want to protect the self (and what the self loves, our family, our reputation, etc.) against what we perceive to be outside of self and outside of what the self possesses.

When we have selflessness, the world becomes an easier place to navigate. The self makes it very difficult to navigate; we really believe we are coursing through the world but in actuality we’re not. We’re more like bumper cars, constantly bumping into each other instead of moving in a harmonious flow. We are constantly trying to get to the front, trying to bump the car that bumped us. This is the bumpy ride of life. In your life, I'm sure you've already had a few bumps by now, and bumped a few cards yourself, so you know what it’s like.

What I'm talking about is very simple, yet putting down the self is so difficult to do. If we could only put down the self, the selflessness of our actions would be pure because we’d no longer be trying to impress ourselves, no longer trying to protect ourselves, but just doing what needs to be done. It would be an easier life to live. As soon as we try to protect ourselves, or think only of ourselves, we make a mess of things. Not protecting ourselves doesn't mean that when you're walking outside you don’t open up an umbrella to protect you from the rain, or if someone wanted to steal something of yours, you wouldn’t protect yourself. Those are natural things that would arise, but attaching to what we have or what somebody might take from us is different. There are the natural outcomes of things that we do based on a wise approach, versus simply having a knee-jerk reaction to situations because of our need to make sure our self has not given up too much or lost anything. The next part of the text follows along with that. It says,

“The greatest worth is self-mastery.”

So, the first part is the achievement of selflessness, but the greatest worth is self-mastery. What does self-mastery mean? It means that we have been able to recognize that the self is there and we've mastered it. Mastery is an interesting notion. In Buddhism we talk about our own nature and sometimes refer to it as our self-nature, which seems to be a contradiction in terms. You say, “How can it be our self-nature? I thought you said we should be selfless.” What you think this self-mastery means?

Student: You see yourself acting like you usually do but you recognize it and have an awareness of yourself.

Gilbert: You’re saying that you're aware. Indeed, what is aware? Is it that the self is aware of something, or is there awareness of self? Is there a difference there?

Student: Awareness of the self means that you have an awareness of the egotistical self that wants to be satisfied, but you’re not going to play along with it.

Gilbert: Who added the “you?”

Student: I don’t know. (Laughter)

Gilbert: It's all right. You're still processing – that is Chan. You’re actually very bold to contribute what you do. We look at it and say, “Is self-awareness the self being self-aware, or is awareness the self?” We have to see how we play with these words. How do they fit? What if there's awareness without self? What’s that?

Student: The mind is no longer controlled by the illusion that there is a self.

Gilbert: And why is it no longer controlled?

Student: Because it realizes it’s an illusion.

Gilbert: And what is the mind doing to recognize this realization?

Student: The mind is becoming clear so it can see what’s real.

Gilbert: Recognizing awareness, moment to moment to moment. When the mind is recognizing self, moment to moment, it is aware. That’s your self-nature. What is it recognizing about self? That it's illusory and it's arising, but it's not there all the time. It arises in accordance with causes and conditions. It's easy, it all fits together as simply as we just described. That’s it, all you have to do is work on this and say, okay, this is the template. There is this awareness of self, arising, moment to moment - that means it's not permanent. We do not claim the self to be us, nevertheless mind is perfectly capable of being aware of things.

The self is like a filter on a cigarette. It doesn't really need to be there, it just filters out a bunch of junk, but that filter is all you see. All you're getting is this accumulation of tar and residue. Let that filter go, just let the natural flow go through. That natural flow is awareness. It's different from the usual aspect of consciousness; one’s mind is at rest.

I gave a class at the L.A. chapter last weekend. They asked, ”What's the difference between awareness and consciousness?” Consciousness is this constant linear pattern of thinking, of attaching to one item after another. A Krispy Kreme donut arises in a person’s mind, “I want a lemon-filled donut - right after I leave here, I'm going to go buy myself a lemon-filled donut - I think I’ll have a chocolate one in addition…” and the mind is all of a sudden creating what we perceive to be this stream of consciousness. But who appointed that person president? That person is now the president of the mind and they’re an illusion, but as long as the stream of consciousness is there, it gives the appearance that there is this self.

Once we start meditating, our mind begins to calm down and the projector stops. In meditation, the projector stops on one object. What is the object? The object is our method. So, whether we’re watching the breath, using a huatou, practicing Silent Illumination, or reciting the Buddha's name, we're using is the method, and the film stops right there. And if you can keep it stopped there, you will see that there is no stream of consciousness, there are just simply thoughts arising in mind in accordance with causes and conditions. When the mind is aware, when it has this self-awareness, then the mind is functioning perfectly. So, if somebody is very angry with you, the mind is aware that “this person is angry, I shouldn't make it worse by calling them a name or making a face. I shouldn't fear this person, I shouldn’t do anything, I should just be careful how I respond, aware of causes and conditions, aware of what will happen.” Then it's very easy for us to respond in a natural way. All of this happens devoid of self. But, if you let the self back in and somebody calls you a name, “No I'm not. I’ll show him, I'm just going to call him a name, or hit him, or whatever.” That’s the self. The self always messes up its response to things.

Atisha is so precise in what he’s saying: the greatest worth is self-mastery, mastering what we're doing. But all we've mastered is deconstructing the stream of consciousness. We've mastered an illusion of self. It's a scary illusion if you step away from it. Very scary. We realize, “I don’t really want to be this person. Did this person really do all that stuff, or have these desires to do these things?” We can kind of probe into it.

Let’s go to the next line: “The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.”

What you think he means here, the greatest quality is seeking to serve others? Anyone have an idea?

[Gilbert, responding to student]: So, the best way to be unhappy is to try to be happy. Yes, because you’re already setting a bar somewhere as to what’s happiness and what's not happiness, so you always match everything up with that. When people want to be happy, what do they do? “Let's take a vacation!” So, the guys are all there sitting by the lake with their feet up drinking beer and they say, “It doesn't get much better than this,” but then on Monday they all have to go back to work. That's trying to be happy.

“The highest quality is seeking to serve others” means that you're putting others before yourself, which works right along with self-mastery and selflessness. The way he’s writing this is incredible and if you read these words, they sound very beautiful. But if you really penetrate them, they’re a roadmap. Chan Masters and Tibetan masters gave us these roadmaps; we just can't decipher them, but if we can begin to do that, we see it’s not just a beautiful saying, there's something there that makes sense.

Atisha’s next excerpt deals with the greatest precept. I said precept, not commandment – there’s a difference. A commandment is a direct ‘Thou shalt do or not do’ that implies retribution. A precept advises, ‘This is conducive to proper practice.’ It’s a kind of vow you take to help you walk the path.

Atisha says, “The greatest precept is continual awareness.”

Think about this. This is very deep, yet extremely simple. That’s what I love about Chan - you can approach it on so many different layers and they're all the same. How does continual awareness relate to self-mastery? Atisha has taken it down another layer - he’s saying, this is how you get to self-mastery - continual awareness is a practice, moment to moment awareness. The greatest worth is self-mastery, but how do you get there? Through continual awareness. Why do you do that? So that you can help others. It’s continual awareness. Awareness of what?

Several students: The ego. The self. Your surroundings. Causes and conditions. Form and function.

Gilbert: All of those things. One need not even be aware of function because it naturally follows the form. If there are no selfish concepts, if there is selflessness, function naturally follows. So yes, all those things are there and this is how one practices.

We practice because of our vows. The precepts are our compass and Atisha is saying that the greatest precept is this continual awareness. Master Sheng Yen used to say that a person with a vow to break is a bodhisattva (bodhi means enlightenment and sattva means being), but a person without a vow to break is a non-practitioner, someone who is stuck in their self. So we aspire to this continual awareness of mind, but it's difficult for us to do. Nevertheless this is what we're practicing. Why do we practice? We practice to help others, to deliver sentient beings. By following this path, we will naturally have self-mastery without the self.

“The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.”

The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. What is emptiness? You could write volumes on this topic and if you did, you'd probably be better off just burning the books. Where do I begin and where do I end and what is there to say? Emptiness is not a concept or anything that one can talk about. Every time I try to think about how to talk about emptiness, it becomes an absolute joke. Nevertheless we have to talk about it. It's not an emptiness of nothing, in the sense of a zero. It’s quite the contrary. That zero holds everything, and if you can't see that you’ll be very far from it. If you accept that, then it’s just here. Emptiness pervades everything and, being empty, everything is impermanent, constantly changing. Later on we’ll go into emptiness in a little more detail.

Everything that is phenomenal is just this way. We cannot say that anything occupies a particular space. There is no locale or time. We create the idea of time in this human realm simply because of the necessity to measure things, but ultimately, if we really look at it, there is no time. Like rightnow…………..how can you measure that? And thismoment…………See how easy it is? That moment could have been 10,000 years, what’s the difference?

This emptiness pervades everything. It’s not that we can say, “everything’s empty so I can do whatever the heck I want.” We cannot say that things are real or unreal, or important or unimportant, but we realize that we’re all connected, or I should say, all is connected, all is in mind. When we realize this, it helps clarify things. We’re aware that even in this phenomenal world there are sattvas, beings, that are suffering, whether they're in the human realm, ghost realm, heaven realm, diva realm, animal realm or hell realm. As long as there is suffering, we understand where the suffering comes from. We aspire to abandon the self for the purpose of assisting other sentient beings.

“The greatest action is not conforming with the world's ways.”

It’s so easy to conform to the world's ways. We are victims of fashion and passions - more passions than fashions, and it's difficult for us to separate ourselves, because we become confused. We always want to play dress-up with our bodies, our hair, our looks, with all the things around us. We want to have a good-looking date next to us, or whatever our desire is. We are always trying to connect with the world, but the world is so transient, so difficult to connect with in any real way.

When Shakyamuni Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree, he was able to conquer that. He was able to see that the world is constantly changing. There were times when Mara (which is actually just the confused part of the mind) rose up and tempted him with Mara's beautiful daughters. Yet Shakyamuni saw that age would take away even this fabulous beauty; it was impermanent. He kept looking at different things as they tempted him and he overcame the fears and desires of the world.

It's difficult for us to do that though, so difficult. But we have to try. Does that mean that we should all become monks or nuns? No, but I give them high respect because even though they've taken a vow and shaved their heads, they still struggle in dealing with worldly affairs and worldly ways. It’s not an easy thing to do. As lay practitioners, we practice what we call the Middle Way, so we should be mindful of that and try, little by little, to disentangle ourselves from the world. I didn't say to escape the world, but to disengage ourselves from the things that cause our mind to be very dull and unenlightened. The more we attach to the world, the duller our mind gets, because we are constantly developing cravings and aversions.

“The greatest magic is transmuting passions.”

The greatest magic is to get rid of passions. It’s so hard, but they can be transformed. What do you transform passions into? You’re converting ignorance into wisdom, Maha Prajna Paramita, the highest level of wisdom.

Master Shen-hua(?), a great master who passed away a while back, would tell people, “Okay, I’ll tell you how you can start practicing and become bodhisattvas. I will tell you, but you’re not going to do it.” Of course the people said, “Tell us, tell us!” so he said, “Give up sex, can you do it?” It’s not likely, but if one can see the wisdom of it, then it’s different. It's not easy for us because we see things from the point of view of ego. But imagine if we gave up sex. What would happen to this world? Humans would cease, the human realm would be gone. Is that a bad thing? Think about it, it makes sense – the whole point of Chan practice is not to be born in the samsaric realms, from the hell realm all the way up to the heaven realm. So, what Master Shen Hua was saying was right to the point.

But why is giving up sex so difficult? Because there is what we call innate habit energy. It’s burned into us. Ask any man, or most men. They have a passion that is generally a more exclusively physical passion than the female. Someone said that women are from Venus and men are from Mars. I don't believe that. Women are from Venus and men are from Pluto - they’re dogs. (Laughter) I say this realistically because this innate habit energy is built into us. We generally have a stronger craving, so it's difficult for us because as we grow up we’re bombarded with it on a daily basis with all the commercials and images that are out there. It’s like the old Rolling Stones song - you can’t ever get satisfaction. As result, it’s difficult for us to break through that, but we can do it. I’m not saying you’ll come in next week wearing unisex clothing. You practice of your own accord. If somebody tells me they’re going to shave their head, I say “Good, I will give you a lot of respect just for trying. Even if you don't make it, that’s something.”At least you have that vow to break. So, we have to look at it and see how these worldly things really cause a lot of problems because of this habit energy and our passions.

Okay, I will stop here. We’ll pick up the last parts next week. This piece by Atisha actually turned out to be very deep and I'm sure it goes even deeper than my very shallow interpretation of it, but it gives you something to think about. I think this is an absolutely wonderful teaching tool, this gift that was presented to us 900 years ago. Just amazing.